HH’s grandmother from Boston told him Duncan Phyfe made the table she left him. Almost everyone with an East Coast grandma runs the risk that she’ll say Phyfe made her family’s furniture. For years after Phyfe’s death people did NOT collect nor desire his furniture. Finally, in the 1920s, a hundred years after his style reach popularity, Classical Mahogany went into reproduction, and his original pieces were given museum shows.
Over time Phyfe employed over 300 craftsmen who copied his style from 1805-1840s. Mainly a New York designer, he also worked for the social elite of Philadelphia and, especially, the plantations of the Old South. Look for anything that reminds you of Greece or Rome, because Phyfe’s Neoclassical style uses elements such as lion’s masks, lion’s paw feet, acanthus leaf carvings, lyres, scrolls, and saber-shaped legs on chairs. He used fruitwoods such as mahogany, cherry, and rosewood, and touched his pieces with very thin veneers for accents.
Strange that a poor boy from Scotland became the nation’s foremost designer in the Neoclassical (Greek and Roman) style. He practiced in New York City for 55 years, employing and later partnering with his sons. After the 18th to 19th turn of the century, Classicism became the rage till the 1840s when taste changed to historical revival styles such as the Gothic, the Rococo, and the Italian Renaissance. Phyfe was the style’s most famous cabinetmaker.
Neoclassical Craze
The Neoclassical style became a worldwide phenomenon touching architecture, furniture, painting, sculpture, fashionable clothing, literature, and interior design. Two world events ushered in the craze. First the mid-18th century discovery of Pompeii and Herculaneum by the German father of archaeology, JJ Winckelmann. He wrote extensively about the ruins as well as about some of the intact buildings of Herculaneum, preserved by twenty-five meters of volcanic ash. The eruption of Mount Vesuvius in 79 AD froze both cities in time.
Roman artist Piranesi made the style of the Classical world famous. Privileged young English and European men taking the Grand Tour of Italy and the Classical World brought art home after years abroad refining their “tastes.” Thus, the discovery of the ancient ruins and the popularity of the Grand Tour began the Neoclassical era.
Phyfe’s Designs Refined and Elegant
Phyfe’s many forms of furniture designs used this style until he retired at almost 80 years old. He became known for portraying parts of animals in his furniture. This tradition springs from the Roman style of using carved animal legs and feet on chairs and tables. For example, on the table HH sent me, the “Hairy Knees” jut out from those four arched legs, which terminate in cat’s claw or lion’s feet. They’re meant to look like feline feet. If they aren’t carved to resemble feet, or talons clutching a ball, they’re cast in bronze as casters.
Phyfe often incorporated the relief face of a lion’s pelt as worn by Hercules as a cape. Phyfe reached back to Classical myth for some of his imagery. Although ubiquitous today, with so many copies, he invented the lyre-backed chair. The pedestal-based table, Phyfe’s dining table, for instance, also shows a Classical element borrowed from nature. These pedestals are carved with the design of acanthus leaves, originally seen on the Corinthian columns in Greek architecture.
Far removed from his childhood Scottish crofter’s cottage, the unique Classical elements of Duncan Phyfe’s furniture became known throughout the world. These pieces are such a part of how we think about furniture that we forget that once they were totally new design concepts. One can see Phyfe’s furniture in the Green Room at the White House, Edgewater, Roper House, and especially at Millford Plantation in South Carolina, owned by the Classical American Homes Preservation Trust.